I didn't originally expect to incorporate 3D printing content in this issue.  Longer ago then I'd like to admit, I broke a knob that controls the water stream off of my bidet.  I was determined to design and 3D print a replacement and originally greatly underestimated the amount of 'torque' that this piece would need to withstand.  Sure, I could have just printed a solid block with the strongest material I have, but I was determined to make a piece that uses the material efficiently.  This lead to a deep dive on the current state of infill pattern designs.  This article does a good job of summarizing most of the things that I ultimately found.  I've done much experimentation around this and I am honing in on a suitable finished product as I write this.  I finally settled on using a cubic subdivision infill.  Have you experimented with using different infill patterns for different projects?  How do you decide which infill pattern to use?

I'm currently three classes into the apple grafting workshop I mentioned in the last issue.  If you were on the fence about joining this virtual class, I can now highly recommend it for next year.  I now have five newly grafted heirloom apple trees on semi-dwarf rootstock resting in my beer fridge in preparation for planting them outside in another week or so.

I also iterated on my healthy peanut butter cookie recipe.  My goal was to make something as good as the maple syrup variant, but without using any 'sugar'.  In an effort to do this, I wanted to use glycine.  Glycine is an amino acid that most of us don't get enough of in our diet.  It's noticeably sweet, and I've been incorporating it into drinks for quite some time.  There is very little documented information on using it in baked goods.  I've tried a few things, and even though I consider the resultant cookies edible, it's mostly been a failure so far when asking others to try them and compare them to the original version.  I plan to keep experimenting even if it's only to produce some better documentation on using glycine in baked goods for the next person attempting this.

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On Postbiotic Metabolites

I mentioned in the past some experimentation I was doing with postbiotic metabolites.  This all started out after reading about the benefits of Akkermansia (mostly related to its production of Urolithin A), testing my own microbiome and then ultimately supplementing with both Urolithin A and Akkermansia and noticing subjective benefits.  I documented the basics of what postbiotic metabolites are and what you can do to increase their production. If you're interested, check out:

Fermented Solutions

I'm pretty sure I mentioned how much I love the app DuoLingo before (if you use it, definitely find me on there).  I have the whole family hooked on using it.  During 'spring break' we took a trip to Pittsburgh that was loosely based around visiting the taco shop at DuoLingo's HQ on the day that employees are known to hang out after work.  Calling this place a 'taco shop' is an understatement.  It really lives up to everything said about it in the DuoLingo blog post.

I currently have 3 beer judging assignments scheduled for the next month.  It would be great if there were a better way to incorporate these into my Untappd stats, but a proper solution to doing that while preserving bias hasn't really been figured out yet.  I'll at least make a foot note about the broad categories that I judged as that might lend insight into my commercial beer stats for the month.

Happy Fermenting!

J

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